“I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.”
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One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime.
In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until a critic pointed that out.
The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.
Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.
